


Requirements

by roughmagic



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Injury, M/M, Medical Trauma, Not Beta Read, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughmagic/pseuds/roughmagic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a few bright moments it took Starkiller to swallow itself, Hux has lost everything. What he has left isn't anything he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requirements

**Author's Note:**

> There was this [absolutely gorgeous fanart](http://sienna-life.tumblr.com/post/136141596868) on tumblr that made me want to write about the time between Starkiller's collapse and when Hux and the thoroughly-trounced Kylo rejoin the First Order, and the weirdly antagonistic but also protective moments that might come out of it. 
> 
> Specific warnings include: mentions of hypos (Star Wars' needles), medical staples, general wounds, etc.

Hux stays in the shuttle’s cockpit, watching as long as he can out of a secondary viewport. Starkiller’s death is on a scale fitting of the machine itself, enormous and beautiful, and when she finally vanishes, Hux lets the new star burn his eyes, staring as long as he can. The photosensitive viewport will keep the glare from blinding him, but when he presses his eyes shut, all he sees is the unbroken star. 

The shuttle’s warning sensors yelp at the sudden gravitic presence and solar radiation, and the stormtrooper in the pilot’s seat swats at them hastily, as if embarrassed. 

Bitterly, Hux wonders if the trooper is worried that he’s interrupting a moment. If General Hux needs time to tearfully accept the staggering loss of what feels like his life’s work. He stares at the star, round and whole and perfect.

He turns away, briefly adjusting the set of the overcoat on his shoulders. “Begin searching hailing frequencies for the _Finalizer_.”

The trooper in the pilot’s seat nods, reaching for the communications array. “Right away, sir.”

The _Finalizer_ had been in orbit around Starkiller’s terminator, in a safe zone apart from both the collector and the emitter— when the Resistance had attacked, Starkiller’s own host of TIE fighters had been utilized to meet them, so apart from the planet’s destruction, no harm should have come to the Star Destroyer. Hux never liked to put all his chips on one slot, but the _Finalizer_ was their best bet. If they were at all capable, they would’ve moved out of orbit at the first sign of Starkiller destabilizing, perhaps made a microjump to escape the system. 

Few in number though they may be, the Resistance might be greedy enough to return to the scene, hoping to pick off stragglers. Their shuttle was fast, but thin-skinned and would not survive any kind of concentrated attack. 

Moreover, Kylo Ren would almost certainly die without real medical attention in a matter of hours. 

Hux stops in the hatch between the cockpit and the hold, shutting his eyes and staring into the star. He cannot force the _Finalizer_ to appear through sheer will, and his fury cannot bring Starkiller back. His hands, however, may be able to save Kylo Ren. That was a crisis he could manage. 

In the hold, it smells unpleasantly of blood and ozone. Two of the four troopers he’d managed to take with him are standing guard, at a loss. The third is where they’d left Kylo Ren as they carried him aboard during their escape, on a repulsorbed designed for moving freight cargo. 

He’s little else, in this state, Hux muses. The seared gash across his face looks agonizing, and a pinkish meltwater has been collecting on the shuttle’s floor since he arrived, blood and snow dripping at a steady rate. 

“Trooper.” Hux holds a hand out for the datapad the trooper had been working with, and receives it instantly. “Status report on our Master Ren.”

“High-caliber round to his midsection, sir, and several cauterized lacerations. Blood loss and shock are his biggest worries.”

Is that the professional diagnosis, his _worries?_ Hux reads over the datapad as the trooper goes over Ren’s prone form with a scanner again, taking readings. The shuttle’s basic medkit has already been cracked open, contents arrayed neatly over a tray. The trooper’s right, although it strikes Hux that he’s had to use mostly the scanner and guesswork, Kylo Ren being permanently ensconced in heavy black robes. 

Hux hands back the datapad and takes Kylo’s jaw, looking for any blood to suggest a head wound. His eyes are half-shut and his color is terrible, face wet with tears and sweat. If he lived, the scar would be gruesomely impressive. Kylo’s head lolls with the movement, mouth working quietly around the syllables of _Supreme Leader_ , his voice hoarse and thin. 

He feels a boiling shot of something in his stomach and slaps Kylo’s face, the other man’s temple smacking against the repulsorbed’s surface. 

The trooper holding the datapad is very still, maybe the only person in the shuttle more shocked than Hux himself. It wasn’t that he’d never thought of hitting Kylo Ren, but disdain and dedication to professionalism had always kept him from it. Perhaps that had died with Starkiller, too. 

Hux hears himself speaking, only shaking slightly. “He isn’t here. _I_ am. Stay awake and give me your mission report, Kylo Ren.”

“The girl…” The other man’s voice a wet rasp, punctuated by slow breaths and thick swallows. Blood has seeped from his gums to frame each of his teeth. “Got away. The trooper… the defective trooper, struck him down…” 

Hux finds he can’t bring himself to care about the girl, as much as Snoke seemed to worry about her. But if it kept Ren at least attempting consciousness, it was better than nothing. “What else?”

“He’s dead.” It leaves him on a guttering sigh. “Han Solo.”

Gesturing at the trooper, Hux takes a moment to pick the right hypo from the basics provided. “Is he?” 

When he puts the injector end of the hypo against Kylo’s neck, tugging soggy robes out of the way, Hux feels an invisible pressure on his shoulders, weak but insistent, and his skin crawls as Kylo protests, pushing his voice to be louder. “No! No— I want to feel this—“

“It’s adrenaline, to keep your heart going. The Supreme Leader requires you to live.” That’s a lie. It’s a painkiller, to settle him down and keep him stabilized until they can rendezvous with a capital ship. 

But Kylo doesn’t protest anymore, apparently having fulfilled his requirement to attempt being stoic and self-flagellating. 

Hux administers the hypo, before replacing it on the tray and selecting a hardy pair of shears next. Kylo doesn’t protest as his robes are cut away, Hux focusing entirely on the process of sawing through the various fabrics and weaves, finding fasteners where he can and peeling away layers. Slowly but surely, Kylo Ren is revealed in his lanky, overly-muscled, sickeningly pale glory. Hux is too many things at that moment to be impressed, and instead lets his professionalism override any feelings of disgust or admiration. 

The trooper has towels and anti-infection sprays ready when Hux calls for them, and they start at the top and work their way down. Kylo decides to make it difficult, starting to shiver as his cold skin is exposed to the air, body temperature already lowered from the snow and blood loss. By the time they’ve disinfected his wounds and patted him more or less dry, he’s shuddering. 

Hux feels a vague, far-off anxiety that takes a back seat to his thought process. If Kylo Ren dies here, after Starkiller’s destruction, Snoke is only going to blame one man. He won’t be responsible for losing the Supreme Leader’s favorite akk dog. 

That would probably upset him more than the loss of Starkiller. 

He throws a glower at the two troopers standing guard, getting a quick straightening back to attention in unison. “Make yourselves useful, check the survival kit for a thermal regulation sheet.”

While they rustle around in the shuttle’s supplies, Hux staples some of Ren’s larger wounds shut. Temporary at best, but it would be better than leaving them gaping open. 

The troopers find the crackling foil sheet Hux was hoping for, and the four of them move to pick him up, hoping to get the sheet under him and roll him up tightly like a Corellian cigar. 

Someone’s boot squeals on a puddle and suddenly Kylo’s weight is pitched onto Hux, sending him staggering back until the shuttle’s seats hit the back of his knees, and he sits down with an embarrassing thump, Kylo’s body splayed against him. 

The troopers are all momentarily frozen in horror.

He’s too tired to be furious, and gestures vaguely at the long, pale lines of Kylo’s body. “Help me wrap him up.”

The troopers swaddle as much of Kylo as they can in the foil sheet, his body laid out on the shuttle’s seat and most of his head and shoulders in Hux’s lap. The sheet covers him only part of the way. The man is too kriffing tall. 

Hux sighs, covering what bare skin he can with his coat. He’s already damp and finding spots of blood all over his clothes. Fighting it at this point would cost them more in morale than anything else. He can bear the shame of being a nursemaid.

Ren’s shuddering has decreased into a shivering that seems to fade in and out, and the blood on Hux’s gloves is growing tacky. He orders the troopers at ease, and watches them tidy up, settling down to clean and reassemble their rifles. He’s viciously envious. Rifles were easy. They made sense. They had a logic, an engineered design. They didn’t anchor their freezing hands into your uniform and hold tightly whenever you moved.

After what seems like hours, the pilot calls back to them. “Contact’s been made with the _Finalizer_ , sir.”

It’s a relief, the first warm sign of recovery. “Good. Have a medical team standing by in the docking bay, and prepare the infirmary for surgery.”

“Very good, sir.”

Kylo shifts, as if to roll off of Hux, and he takes a firmer hold on the man’s shoulders. At least he’s mostly unconscious. Their own separate, relative shames should keep this incident from ever coming up in the future, when he’s no doubt recovered. 

They were tied together, however unfairly and however much they both hated it. He couldn’t salvage Starkiller, but he could save Kylo Ren. 

Hux listens to the shuddery breathing. If you could trade such things, he mused, he would strangle Kylo with his bare hands to get the smallest shred of his work back. 

That’s isn’t how it works, though. Kylo Ren will live.


End file.
